Analysis of raster scanning damage and conditioning experiments

The raster scan technique is used for large optics damage tests and laser conditioning. We show that the "effective area" concept enables the possibility to compare various scanning schemes and to use raster scan experiments for NIF optics damage prediction. It is shown that the hexagonal lattice of laser beam imprints yields optimal use of each shot for most of the typically used parameters. The effects of beam fluence fluctuations and pointing inaccuracies on experiments are evaluated. To analyze raster scan conditioning experiments, we introduce the concept of "effective dose," i.e. total dose averaged over a unit cell of the scan lattice. This allows various scanning schemes to be compared quantitatively.